The Windup Girl (49 page)

The storm was surging all around him, and he had refused to accept it. . . but not this time. This time, he is prepared. The air is electric with what is about to occur. Ever since the white shirts closed down the factories it was apparent. And now it is about to break. And this time, he is ready. Hock Seng smiles to himself, examines his little bunker with its stores of money and gems and food.

"Is there any more word on the radio?" he asks.

The three men exchange glances. Laughing Chan nods at Pak Eng. "It's your turn to wind it."

Pak Eng scowls and goes over to the radio. It's an expensive device, and Hock Seng is regretting that he purchased it at all. There are other radios in the slums, but lurking beside them draws attention and so he spent money on this one, unsure if it would even carry anything other than rumor, and yet unable to deny himself another source of information.

Pak Eng kneels beside the thing and starts to wind it. Its speaker crackles to life, barely loud enough over the whine of the crank.

"You know, if you fitted this with a decent gear system, it would be a lot more efficient."

Everyone ignores him, their attention entirely focused on the tiny speaker: Music,
saw duang
. . .

Hock Seng crouches by the radio, listening intently. Changes the dial. Pak Eng is starting to sweat. He winds for another thirty seconds and stops, puffing. "There. That should last a little while."

Hock Seng works the dial on the machine, listening to the divining winds of radio waves. Twirls across stations. Nothing but entertainments. Music.

Laughing Chan looks up. "What time is it?"

"Four, perhaps?" Hock Seng shrugs.

"There should be
muay thai.
They should be doing the opening
rituals by now."

Everyone exchanges glances. Hock Seng moves through more stations. Music only. No news. Nothing. . . And then a voice. Filling all the stations, speaking as one voice and one station. They all crouch round, listing.

"Akkarat, I think." Hock Seng pauses. "The Somdet Chaopraya has died. Akkarat is blaming the white shirts." He looks at them all. "It is beginning."

Pak Eng and Laughing Chan and Peter all look at Hock Seng with respect. "You were right."

Hock Seng nods impatiently. "I learn."

The storm is gathering. The megodonts must do battle. It is their fate. The power sharing of the last coup could never last. The beasts must clash and one will establish final dominance. Hock Seng murmurs a prayer to his ancestors that he will come out of this maelstrom alive.

Laughing Chan stands. "I guess we'll have to earn this bodyguard money after all."

Hock Seng nods seriously. "It will not be pretty, not for anyone who is not prepared."

Pak Eng begins pumping his spring gun. "It reminds me of Penang."

"Not this time," Hock Seng says. "This time, we are ready." He waves to them. "Come. It's time we saw to whatever else we can—"

A banging on the door makes them all straighten.

"Hock Seng! Hock Seng!" A hysterical voice, more pounding from outside.

"It's Lao Gu." Hock Seng pulls open the door and Lao Gu stumbles in.

"They've taken Mr. Lake. The foreign devil and all his friends."

Hock Seng stares at the rickshaw man. "The white shirts are moving against him?"

"No. The Trade Ministry. I saw Akkarat himself do the deed."

Hock Seng frowns. "It makes no sense."

Lao Gu shoves a flier into his hands. "It's the windup. The one that he kept bringing to his flat. She's the one that killed the Somdet Chaopraya."

Hock Seng reads quickly. Nods to himself. "You're sure about this windup creature? Our foreign devil was working with an assassin?"

"I only know what it says on the whisper sheet, but that's the
heechy-keechy
for sure, from the way it describes her. He brought her from Ploenchit many times. Let her sleep there, even."

"Is it a problem?" Laughing Chan asks.

"No." Hock Seng shakes his head, allows himself a smile. He goes and digs a ring of keys out from under his mattress. "An opportunity. A better one than I expected." He turns to them all. "We won't be hiding here after all."

"No?"

Hock Seng grins. "There's one last place we must go before we depart the city. One last thing to collect. Something from my old offices. Gather up the weapons."

To his credit, Laughing Chan does not question. Simply nods and holsters his pistols, slings a machete across his back. The rest do the same. Together, they file out through the door. Hock Seng closes it behind him.

Hock Seng jogs down the alley after his people, the keys to the factory jingling in his hand. For the first time in a long time, fate moves in his favor. Now all he needs is a little luck and a little more time.

Up ahead, people are shouting about white shirts and the death of their Queen's protector. Angry voices, ready for a riot. The storm is brewing. The battle pieces are being aligned. A little girl hurries past, pressing whisper sheets into each of their hands before dashing on. The political parties are already at work. Soon the godfather of the slum will have his own people down in the alleys inciting violence.

Hock Seng and his men make their way out of the squeezeways and pour out into the street. Nothing is moving. Even the freelance rickshaw men have gone to ground. A group of shopkeepers huddle around a hand-crank radio. Hock Seng waves at his men to wait, goes over to the listeners. "What news?"

A woman looks up. "National Radio says the Protector. . ."

"Yes, I know that. What else does it say?"

"Minister Akkarat has denounced General Pracha."

It's happening even faster than he expected. Hock Seng straightens and calls to Laughing Chan and the others. "Come on. We're going to run out of time if we don't hurry."

As he calls to them, a huge truck comes around the corner, engine revving. It is astonishingly noisy. Exhaust trails behind it like an illegal dung fire. Dozens of hard-faced troops stare out from the back as it roars by. Hock Seng and his men duck back into the alley, coughing. Laughing Chan peers out, following the truck's progress. "Its running on coal diesel," he says wonderingly. "It's the army."

Hock Seng wonders if it is December 12 loyalists, some component of the Northeastern generals coming to aid General Pracha and retake the National Radio Tower. Or perhaps they are Akkarat's allies, rushing to secure the sea locks or the docks or the anchor pads. Or perhaps they are simply opportunists, getting ready to take advantage of the coming chaos. Hock Seng watches as they disappear around a corner. Harbingers of the storm, regardless.

The last pedestrians are disappearing into their homes. Shop keepers are barring their storefronts from within. The clank and rattle of locks fills the street. The city knows what is going to happen.

Memories peck and swirl at Hock Seng. Alleys running thick with blood. The scent of green bamboo, smoking and burning. He reaches for the reassurance of his spring gun and machete. The city may be a jungle full of tigers, but this time he is not some little deer, running from Malaya. At last, he has learned. It is possible to prepare for chaos.

He motions to his men. "Come. This is our time."

35

"It was not Pracha! He's not involved in this!"

Kanya shouts into the crank phone, but she might as well be raving through the bars of a jail cell for all the impact it makes. Narong hardly seems to be listening. The line crackles with jumbled voices and the hum of machinery, and Narong, apparently, speaking to someone nearby, his words unintelligible.

Suddenly Narong's voice crackles loud, blotting out the background sounds. "I'm sorry, we have our own information."

Kanya scowls at the whisper sheets on her desk, the ones that Pai brought in with a grim smile. Some speak of the fallen Somdet Chaopraya, others of General Pracha. They all talk of the assassin windup girl. Fast-copies of
Sawatdee Krung Thep!
are already pouring into the city. Kanya scans the words. It's full of impassioned complaints against the white shirts who shut down harbors and anchor pads but cannot protect the Somdet Chaopraya from a single invasive.

"These whisper sheets are yours then?" she asks.

Narong's silence is answer enough.

"Why did you even ask me to investigate?" She can't keep the bitterness from her voice. "You were already moving."

Narong's cold voice crackles on the line. "It's not your place to question."

His tone brings her up short. "Did Akkarat do it?" she whispers fearfully. "Was he the one responsible? Pracha says that Akkarat was involved somehow. Did he do it?"

Another pause. Is it a thoughtful one? She can't tell. Finally Narong says, "No. I swear this. We are not the ones responsible."

"So you guess it must be Pracha then?" She shuffles through the licenses and permits on her desk. "I'm telling you he is not the one! I have all the windup's records here. Pracha himself
wanted
me to investigate. To find every trace of her. I have her arrival papers with the Mishimoto people. I have disposal papers. I have visas. Everything."

"Who signed the disposal papers?"

She fights her frustration. "I can't read the signature. I need more time to cross-reference who was on duty around that time."

"And by the time you do, they will inevitably be dead."

"Then why did Pracha set me to the task of finding this information? It doesn't make sense! I talked to the officers who took the bribes at that bar. They were nothing but silly boys, making a little extra money."

"He's clever then. He's covered his tracks."

"Why do you hate Pracha so much?"

"Why do you love him? Did he not order your village razed?"

"Not from malice."

"No? Did he not sell the fish farming permits to another village the next season? Sell them and line his pockets with the profits?"

She falls silent. Narong moderates his tone. "I'm sorry, Kanya. There's nothing we can do. We are certain of his crime. We have authorization from the palace to resolve this."

"With riots?" She shoves the whisper sheets off her desk. "With a burning of the city? Please. I can stop this. It's not necessary. I can find the proof that we need. I can prove that the windup is not Pracha's. I can prove it."

"You're too close to this. Your loyalties are divided."

"I'm loyal to our Queen. Just give me a chance to stop this madness."

Another pause. "I can give you three hours. If you have nothing by sunset, I can do nothing more."

"But you'll wait until then?"

She can almost hear the smile on the other end of the line. "I will." And then the line is closed. And she is alone in her office.

Jaidee settles himself on her desk. "I'm curious. How will you prove Pracha's innocence? It's obvious that he's the one who placed her."

"Why can't you leave me alone?" Kanya asks.

Jaidee smiles. "Because it's
sanuk
. Very fun to watch you flail around and try to run for two masters." He pauses, studying her. "Why do you care what happens to General Pracha? He's not your real patron."

Kanya looks at him with hatred. She waves at the whisper sheets strewn about her office. "It's just like it was five years ago."

"With Pracha and Prime Minister Surawong. With the December 12 gatherings." Jaidee studies the whisper sheets. "Akkarat moving against us, this time, though. So it's not entirely the same."

Outside the window of her office, a megodont bellows. Jaidee smiles. "You hear that? We're arming. There's no way you can keep these two old bulls from clashing. I don't know why you would even try. Pracha and Akkarat have been bellowing and snorting at each other for years. It's time we had a good fight."

"This isn't
muay thai,
Jaidee."

"No. You're right about that." For a moment his smile turns sad.

Kanya stares at the whisper sheets, the collected paperwork on the windup's import. The windup is missing. But still, it came from the Japanese. Kanya studies the notes: she was brought across on a dirigible flight from Japan. An executive assistant—

"And a killer," Jaidee interjects.

"Shut up. I'm thinking."

A Japanese windup. An abandoned bit of the island nation. Kanya stands abruptly, grabs her spring gun and shoves it into her holster as she gathers papers.

"Where are you going?" Jaidee asks.

She favors him with a thin smile. "If I told you, that would take away the
sanuk
."

Jaidee's
phii
grins. "Now you're getting into the spirit of things."

36

The crowd around Emiko grows. People jostle her. There's nowhere to run. She's in the open, waiting to be discovered.

Her first urge is to slash her way free, to fight for survival, even though there is no hope of escaping the crowd before she overheats.
I will not die like an animal. I will fight them. They will bleed.

She forces down that increasing panic. Tries to think. More people squeeze around her, trying to get close to the posted sheet. She is trapped among them, but no one has noticed her yet. As long as she doesn't move. . .

The press of the crowd is almost an advantage. She can barely shake, let alone display the stutter-stop motions that would betray her.

Slowly. Carefully.

Emiko allows herself to lean against the people, to push slowly through them, head down, pretending to be a woman sobbing, shaking with grief at a blow against the palace. She stares at her feet, finding her way through the crowd, pressing carefully through until she reaches the outer edge. People huddle in groups, crying, sitting on the ground, staring around the street, stunned. Emiko feels a certain pity for them. Remembers watching Gendo-sama board his dirigible after he told her that he had done her a kindness, even as he abandoned her to the streets of Krung Thep.

Focus
, she tells herself angrily. She needs to get away. Needs to reach the alley where people will not notice her. Wait for darkness.